Gaze upon the peerless technical skill Pat Lee displays in showing such wide ranges of emotion as despair, terror, disbelief, triumph and rage!
Conan The Barbarian is a sweeping fantasy epic from the days when they knew how to make a sweeping fantasy epic. The formula was a simple one: hire a bodybuilder, don’t give him any dialogue, and make sure he’s packing an enormous sword; then add is an evil wizard, and a scantily clad female or two and you’ve got the recipe for pretty much every swords and sorcery epic of the 1980′s.
Produced by Dino De Laurentis—who was certainly no stranger to spectacle—both Conan films (Barbarian and Destroyer) embodied the larger than life ideals of the Marvel Comics. It is true that Robert E. Howard invented the character of Conan, but neither film really captures his storytelling which was all manly action and gore-spurting combat. Instead the films attempt to humanize the mighty Cimmerian and make him more than just an iron thewed killing machine. The result is an uneven, yet awesome pair of films in which Conan falls in love, loses his lover, sexes up a werewolf, fails to be seduced by either a simpering princess, or the terrifyingly oiled-up Grace Jones, and then goes head to head with a giant rubber snake.
Now he laid down the golden stylus with which he had been laboriously scrawling on waxed papyrus, rested his chin on his fist, and fixed his smoldering blue eyes enviously on the man who stood before him. This person was occupied in his own affairs at the moment, for he was taking up the laces of his gold-chased armor, and abstractedly whistling – a rather unconventional performance, considering that he was in the presence of a king.
"Prospero," said the man at the table, "these matters of statecraft weary me as all the fighting Ihave done never did..."
"...I did not dream far enough, Prospero. When King Numedides lay dead at my feet and I tore the crown from his gory head and set it on my own, I had reached the ultimate border of my dreams. I had prepared myself to take the crown, not to hold it. In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless.
When I overthrew Numedides, then I was the Liberator – now they spit at my shadow. They have put a statue of that swine in the temple of Mitra, and people go and wail before it, hailing it as the holy effigy of a saintly monarch who was done to death by a red-handed barbarian.
When I led her armies to victory as a mercenary, Aquilonia overlooked the fact that I was a foreigner, but now she can not forgive me...."
"No, Prospero, he’s beyond my reach. A great poet is greater than any king. His songs are mightier than my scepter; for he has near ripped the heart from my breast when he chose to sing for me. I shall die and be forgotten, but Rinaldo’s songs will live for ever."
Not many films have managed to capture the feel of the comics that they are based on as well as the Conan films do. The characters may not be complicated, but they don’t have to be, because they are larger than life. Despite efforts to humanize them, they remain iconic. They may not be played by the greatest actors in the world, but each and every one of those actors is perfect for the role they are asked to play. We don’t want to see Conan deliver a fancy speech, we want to see him chop off Thulsa Doom’s head and roll it down the stairs like a bowling ball! We don’t want Grace Jones in a romantic roll, we want to see her hitting stunt men in the crotch with a pointy stick! All right thinking people want to see that (except for the stuntmen) and I can assure you, with Crom as my witness, that seeing these films at the Grand Illusion is one of those things that is best in life.
When viewed within context of existing Conan stories by creator Robert E. Howard, the film is somewhat of a patchwork affair, taking various ideas, characters, locations and names from the Hyborean age and melding them into a storyline that simultaneously has little and everything to do with the character. The look and feel of the people and world in the movie are most certainly recognizable as Conan, yet there is an odd emptiness that can be felt on occasion by many fans of the character’s literary origins. Something perhaps lost in translation from written word to silver screen.
In the same fashion that the film takes a hodgepodge of Conan lore and molds it into something new, likewise the film Conan is his own person…and being quiet, brooding and aloof is who he is.
Conan the Barbarian is a fun film. Certainly it is the best example of the Swords and Sorcery subgenre of fantasy films. Beyond that, it exudes a certain brutal and primitive charm. Not to be over analyzed, it exists purely on a popcorn movie level. Even to this day, it may be too violent for some people, especially kids. For those who like lots of talking in their epics, this film may not be for you. However, for those who like sweeping visuals that really add atmosphere to a story, this may be more to your liking – even if the story in question is a bare bones affair driven by plot more than character. Fans of fantasy films should check it out at least once, though don’t expect the deepness or intricacy of The Lord of the Rings.
After all that buildup of Robert E. Howard, it might seem odd to recommend an entry point he had nothing to do with. But what sets apart the original Conan The Barbarian movie (a remake is planned for 2011) is that its primary creative forces, director John Milius and screenwriter Oliver Stone, had a genuine affection for and understanding of the character. Milius, an old-school Hollywood conservative, was drawn to the warlike nature of the character and his simple, brutal philosophies, while Stone liked his essentially gloomy, melancholic nature. Stone’s script is full of lines drawn from Howard’s original Conan stories, and Milius infuses every scene with the lively pulp energy of the stories. They play a bit fast and loose with the character’s history, but overall, it’s one of the best realizations of Conan: effective, thrilling, and a perfect way to draw new fans into the mythos.
The film has plenty of other merits, as well; it provides a good overview of the geographies and cultures of Howard’s “Hyborian Age” (a thinly veiled amalgam of the classical era of a number of European and Asian cultures), and has a tremendous soundtrack by the late film composer Basil Poledouris. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t do the world’s best acting job, but he looks perfect, and is surrounded by a great supporting cast. The action scenes are terrific, the dialogue is highly quotable, and it captures the spirit of Howard’s stories surprisingly well. (It also has an amusing DVD commentary track featuring a wry Milius and a goofy Schwarzenegger.)
Articles
We know how distorted a fact can become, even when passed through the mouths of a generation of fairly well educated people; how much more, then, must truths be twisted into myths at the hands of savages and barbarians through the ages. Sometimes it seems to me that there might be a blind spot in our conception of history and prehistory a whole undiscovered continent of facts, lying beyond our horizon; a vast, forgotten reservoir of knowledge, of which our modern sciences are but seepings, trickles from the greater store. I do not, of course, even put this forward as a supposition, but merely as a thought.
- Robert E. Howard, letter to Clark Ashton Smith, March 1934
The omnibus starts with an introduction by Mr Werner himself where he talks about Mathias Thulmann being his first character created for Black Library, his love of halloween, and the influences of Vincent Price's Anthony Hopkins and Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane when creating Thulmann.
To Whomever finds this message...
It has been a year to the day since I was trapped in this strange, threatening place. I cannot easily describe it, for it changes on a whim: some days it's a desert island, then after a night's sleep, it seems to transform into the surface of the moon. No rhyme or reason, no pattern, no predictions. I could spend a day on the top of a freezing mountain, or weeks in a lightless subterranean cavern. Most mysterious of all, I always find resources and supplies roughly nearby: whether they were left here by some predecessor, or placed here by whatever nameless presence is keeping me here, I cannot say.
Two hundred and thirty mission logs have been sent in whatever vessel I hope will reach civilization. Since then, many things have occurred: I've been in contact with authors, journalists, artists and scholars; I've taken the banner of Howardom all across the internet; I've conversed with a little community of like minds. On occasion, I've found that I can interact with the outside world, yet I suspect my messages are being tampered with, for in none of the responses do my contacts address my situation. Something doesn't want the world to know I am here - but they will let people know I exist. Why?
Currently, the place has the form of a jungle. There is something in the bushes. Big. No telling what's lurking out there. Better check it out...
After many starts and stops, back and forth discussions, death knells and forlorn hopes, Fan Fiction has finally been approved for these forums.
Over the next few days a new forum will be added to the General Discussions family. This forum will be used for all fan material, including fiction, artwork, screenplays and poetry.
This means the existing poetry thread and the many amateur art threads will be relocated to this new home.
At present I am finalizing the rules for posting, but I wanted to give everyone a head's up.
Now let's see some of those creative juices....
Damon: I understand you are writing an original story for the first issue – can you share any details?
Mark: Well, I don’t want to give anything away, because it’s only 8 pages. But this was my charge: show the readers what makes El Borak such a bad-ass. I can tell you it’s about six and a half pages of El Borak doing what he does best: sword-fighting, shooting, riding, and in general taking care of business. In terms of the later Gordon stories, there’s only a handful to make Canon: the range of what El Borak does and can do is more implied than stated in those stories. So, I tried to do another twist on exactly the kinds of things El Borak would do in the course of his adventures. You know, it’s not El Borak making a bid for tribal warlord, or anything like that. I cleaved very closely to the REH stories. But, since it’s a comic book, too, I dropped in something that could be picked up for later, if necessary. I can tell you that this takes place about six months or so after “Hawks of the Hills.”
Now, just watch. When the book comes out, someone, probably someone we both know, will lambast me on the Conan forums: “El Borak would NEVER do those things, or talk like that!” (Laughs)
In between penning Apocalypse Now and establishing his position as chief propagator of Republican revenge fantasies with films like Red Dawn and Clear And Present Danger, writer-director John Milius introduced the world to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and through him, Conan The Barbarian.
Milius’ 1982 film (reworked from a script by Oliver Stone) plays with the same surprisingly subtle themes as the Robert E. Howard pulp stories that inspired it. In telling the tale of Conan’s vendetta against Thulsa Doom—the dark shaman and cult leader who slaughtered Conan’s people—Milius ruminates on the relation between civilization and violence, with references ranging from Nietzsche to Genghis Khan.
Of significant note to fans, a sequel titled Almuric: Lost Gods is being written for release later this year by Mark Ellis, a prolific adventure writer who has contributed numerous additions to the Outlanders and Deathlands series from Gold Eagle.
Suddenly I have the overwhelming urge to write a new crossover: Conan vs the Street Sharks...
